The first of Vladimir Ilyich's letters published here — "On Comrade Preobrazhenskii's Theses" — was written by him in Gorki, during the period of preparation for the XI Party Congress, on March 16, 1922.

Comrade Preobrazhenskii's theses, as is well known, were not discussed at the Congress itself, since at the Congress itself a special commission was formed, as Vladimir Ilyich proposed in his letter, which worked out a draft resolution of the Congress. The basis of this resolution, affirmed by the XI Congress, on work in the countryside (see stenographic report of the XI Congress of the RCP(b), M. 1922, p. 500) was laid in its entirety, with minor editorial changes and the addition of several points, the draft of Vladimir Ilyich from his second letter to comrade Osinski, written by him on April 1, already in Moscow, toward the end of the Congress proceedings, and his own proposal concerning the creation of a permanent commission for the gathering and study of practical experience in work in the countryside (see letter to Comrade Molotov on Comrade Preobrazhenskii's theses).

We provide in the notes the corresponding excerpts from the theses of Comrade Preobrazhenskii that Vladimir Ilyich examines.

V. I. Lenin*

1.
ON COMRADE PREOBRAZHENSKII'S THESES.

To Comrade Molotov for members of the Polit. Bureau

1. The title is unsuitable. This is not "basic principles"*) which have already been established by the Program, but "On the Setting Up of the Work of the RCP in the Countryside Under the Conditions of the Present Moment."

I propose: to entrust the author to **shorten** and partially alter the theses in accordance with this change of theme. In particular, to shorten the general principled repetitions (their place will be in a leaflet explaining and commenting on the future resolution of the Congress) and to develop in greater detail the **practical**, especially **organizational** conclusions.

2. In the heading of § 1: "social relations" in the plural instead of the singular.

(The correspondence is slovenly: "objedineniya" instead of "obedneniya," "besploschiadnykh" instead of bezloshadnykh...*))

3. In § 1 there is especially much verbosity: much must be transferred to a brochure.*)

ON COMRADE PREOBRAZHENSKII'S THESES

4. On "cooperativization" both in § 1 and in other §§ it is spoken of in a bare and abstract manner.*) This has already been said a thousand times and it is tiresome. It must be set forth in a completely different way, not repeating the bare slogan: "cooperativize yourselves!", but **pointing concretely to what the practical experience of cooperativization consists of and how to aid it**. If the author lacks such material, then the resolution of the Congress must contain a **requirement to collect and work out this material not academically, but practically**. (All of Comrade Preobrazhenskii's theses are super- and over-academic; pedantry, clique-mongering, literary hacksterism, and not practical governmental and economic work.)

5. "With the exception of collective farms" is not development but a "tendency toward decline"*) (among the poor). This will not do. First, it is not proven that "collectives" are generally better. We should not tease the peasants with false communist bragging. Second, it is not a "tendency toward decline" but a retardation of development **everywhere**; decline is **often** the case.

6. That "well-to-do peasant farming" "becomes absorbed" in "the task of improving agricultural culture"*), this is expressed awkwardly and, unfortunately, is also "communist boasting". One must say: "begins, although slowly" (§ 1).

7. "Peasant (?) equality dissolves" (?)*). This cannot be said this way.

The end of the 1st § is completely unsuitable: an article, not a thesis; propositions without data.

8. The beginning of § II is super-unpopular. And as for substance, this has no place in theses. It's not in that style.*)

9. The second sentence of § II (against "kombед methods") is harmful and incorrect, because war, for example, may compel recourse to kombед methods.*) One must speak of this quite differently: for example, thus: in view of the predominant importance of raising agricultural production and increasing its output, at the present moment the policy of the proletariat toward kulak and well-to-do peasant farming **should be directed chiefly toward limiting its exploitative strivings**, etc.

How to limit these strivings, how to protect the poor — that is what our state must and can do; therein lies the whole essence. This must be studied and we must make it be studied practically, while general phrases are empty.

10. The last words of § II are correct, but not popular and not elaborated. Work must be done on them.*) 

11. In § III the phrase: "Separation," etc., is completely distorted.

12. As to the substance of the whole of § III, there predominate commonplaces. This is to no purpose. To repeat them in such a bare fashion is harmful; it will produce nausea, boredom, anger against the chewing of cud.*) Instead of this, it would be better to take at least one **district and show by business-like analysis how one must aid "cooperativization," rather than stupidly angering the peasants with communist propaganda for cooperatives; how and in what exactly we have in practice aided agro-economic improvements, etc., and should aid, etc.**

Not the right approach to the theme. A harmful approach. Everyone is sickened by general phrases. They breed bureaucratism and encourage it.

13. The beginning of § IV is especially unsuccessful. This is an unpopular article, not theses for a Congress.

Further. "Directives by decree," that is what the author proposes. This is fundamentally incorrect. Bureaucratism is strangling us precisely because we are still playing at "directives by decree." The author could not have thought of anything worse and more harmful.*)

Further. To say at the Congress of the RCP that "it is necessary to carry out the decisions of the IX Congress of Soviets," this is a scandal. There is no need to write theses for this.

The whole § is unsuitable. Commonplaces. Phrases. Wishes, which everyone is tired of. This is precisely modern "combureaucratism."

Instead of this, it would be better to take data of **practical experience**, even if only for one district, — even if only for one volost — and work them out not academically, but **practically**: learn, my dear combureaucrats, **thus one must not do it** (concretely, with examples and names of places, with exact indication of facts), and **thus one must do it** (equally concretely).

In relation to "cooperativization," this deficiency in the theses is particularly great here in § IV and particularly harmful.

14. In § V "agricultural proletariat cadres" are declared to be "sovkhoz workers." This is incorrect. This is "communist bragging." Much more often these are not proletarians but "paupers," petty bourgeois, and anything you please. We must not deceive ourselves with falsehoods. This is harmful. This is the chief source of our bureaucratism. And this wrongly irritates the peasants, offends them. It would be wiser to keep silent for now about "agricultural proletariat cadres" in our sovkhozes.

It is stated correctly further that the organization of this "proletariat" ("highly diverse and motley": correct! and therefore more resembling... something unseemly, but not "cadres") "is very difficult."

ON COMRADE PREOBRAZHENSKII'S THESES

Correct! And therefore one must not say such things as "the composition of the sovkhozes should be purged of petty-proprietorial elements," because this will provoke laughter, and justified laughter (like purging peasant huts of bad air).

Better to keep silent.*)

15. In § VI (only!) does an approach to practical tasks begin. But even this approach is so weak, so little grounded in practical experience, that one must draw the conclusion (modifying the proposal outlined above, in point 1): 

recognize the theses as unsuitable;

entrust the author plus Osinski, plus Teodorovich, plus Yakovenko to organize at the Congress a conference of delegates working in the countryside;

make the theme of the conference by no means "principles" and so forth, but exclusively the study and assessment of practical experience: 

how to cooperativize?

how to struggle with poor sovkhozes? with poor cooperatives and collectives?

how to strengthen Vserabotzemles?*) (assign the author there for **long-term** work).

Set as the task of this conference by the Central Committee — by no means to fall into the repetition of commonplaces, but exclusively to study in detail local (district, volost, village) practical experience; if there is little of it (probably there is little, because no one took the trouble to gather it; but there is a great deal of ungathered experience), then it would be better to choose by the Congress

(a) a commission for the study of this practical experience;

(b) subordinate it to the Cent. Committee;

(c) include Comrade Preobrazhenskii in it;

(d) assign him to Vserabotzemles...

(e) entrust the commission to gather experience, work it over, develop it (after a series of articles).

A **Letter of the Central Committee (new) on the setting up of work in the countryside** with obligatory concrete indication of **how to cooperativize, how to "limit" kulaks without halting the growth of production, how to conduct the work of Vserabotzemles, how to strengthen it**, etc., etc.

Prepare the Congress resolution from the Central Committee as follows (approximately):

Facts show, and a special commission of the Congress confirms, that the chief deficiency of the Party in the field of work in the countryside is the non-study of practical experience. This is the root of all ills and all bureaucratism. The Congress entrusts the Central Committee to combat this above all. Among other things, by means of such a commission, of which 1— (or 2, 3) shall go to Vserabotzemles for **permanent** work.

The commission must publish leaflets, brochures, studying experience systematically, so as to advise and order how exactly to conduct work, how not to conduct it.

Lenin.

16/III 1922

*) The title of Comrade Preobrazhenskii's theses: "Basic Principles of the Policy of the RCP in the Modern Countryside."

*) The copy of the theses which Vladimir Ilyich had was full of typographical errors, which prompted the remark in the second point.

*) In § I of the theses, general propositions are given on the theme of the development of productive forces and social relations in the modern countryside.

*) On "cooperativization" in § I it is said: "The greater ... part (of middle-peasant farms) can rise to a higher level only in the process of its own cooperativization with the support of the Soviet state..."

*) "As for the poorest strata of the countryside, then, with the exception of collective farms, there is indicated here a tendency not toward development but toward a decline of productive forces, a reduction of sown areas," etc. (§ I).

*) "But even more quickly and noticeably is singled out from the ranks of the middle-peasant mass a stratum of sturdy well-to-do peasantry, absorbed in the task of improving agricultural culture and raising the yield of the land on the basis of individual intensive farming" (§ I).

*) "Thus, the peasant equality of the countryside, characteristic of the period of civil war, now dissolves from two poles simultaneously" (§ I).

*) § II — on relations toward the kulaks and well-to-do peasantry.

*) "The policy of non-recognition of this (kulak and well-to-do peasant) stratum and its crude extra-economic suppression by kombед methods of 1918 would be the most harmful error" (§ II).

*) At the end of the second paragraph it is said of the necessity of utilizing the begun process of capitalist accumulation in the countryside, not undermining the farming of kulaks and well-to-do peasants, for socialist accumulation.

*) § III of the theses — on relations toward the middle peasantry.

*) § IV — on relations toward poor peasants. At the beginning of this paragraph it speaks of the reasons for the growth of the stratum of poor peasants, their exploitation by well-to-do groups, the necessity for them of cooperativization and state aid. For the carrying out of the latter, it proposes to give by decree directives to all commissariats and economic agencies.

*) § V — on relations toward the agricultural proletariat and semi-proletariat.